


This Is How We Rise

by Kariachi



Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
Genre: Gemma Lives AU, Gen, Jaxom Doesn't AU, References to Abuse and Child Death, Women In Power, You Will Pry Ruatha and Her Kin From Lessa's Cold Dead Hands AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-09 11:55:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19887301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kariachi/pseuds/Kariachi
Summary: Crom's Lady wakes up to a whole new world ahead of her.





	This Is How We Rise

Gemma of Crom woke slowly, eyes blinking blearily into the dark night. She did not recognize the room, the bed, or the calloused hand clasped in hers, but after the past years that was more comfort than if she had. Without hesitation she squeezed it gently. The small figure sat beside her bed jerked awake with a gasp, threw a worried around the room, then settled enough to pull the cloth from the glowbasket on the bedside table.

“Hello, cousin,” the young woman said with a smile, cementing from where that pale face seemed familiar. Gemma’s heart beat faster.

“Lessa?” she breathed more than spoke. “Lessa… I thought you were dead...”

“And I thought you were a sevenday ago, so I suppose we’re even.” She reached up to stroke her kin’s cheek, something in her heart snarling at the barest flinch away from her hand. Lessa was alive, of all the things she had expected from being dragged to Ruatha- She froze.

“My babe-”

“Dead,” Lessa said matter-of-factly, “as is his father.” Her heart sank. Her baby, her son, was dead. But, Fax was dead as well, and that was a load from around her shoulders no matter the circumstances.

“How,” she asked, hoping against hope it had been something slow and awful, like being eaten by dogs. That had been a familiar dream, as he went about slaughtering her kin, and if she hadn’t worried for her daughters, worried for them now, she’d have done something turns ago when she still had the strength.

“Lost a duel to a dragonman,” Lessa answered, “the son of the one he had killed, according to Masterharper Robinton, which I expect will make the inevitable song all the more dramatic.” Her cousin sighed and sat back in her chair, still holding onto her hand like she may disappear at any moment. Where had she been? What had happened to her? “No one knows yet, besides the workers of the Hold, the Masterharper, and the dragonmen, and I’ve already taken steps to avoid people finding out until we’re ready.” Oh, well that was a relief. If people thought Fax still lived that was still another layer of safety for her children.

“Ready?” Gemma had a feeling she knew where this was going, but she needed to hear it, if just to hear Lessa’s voice. She’d gotten so big, even if she’d stayed small…

“I intend to retake control of Ruatha, in my own name, as is my birthright.” Yes, that was exactly what she had expected. And the fire that lit in Lessa’s eyes said that she probably would succeed. She was strong, had always been strong, and no one would bend her. “I don’t know what you would do now, but I felt it kind to wait and find out.”

What she would do now. Gemma squeezed Lessa’s hand again, an assurance this was no dream for if it was her hands would still be soft. What she would do. Live her life free of vicious men. See Crom prosper once more. Ensure her daughters would never be cast aside like nothing as by their sire, or beaten down as she had been.

“I think,” she said, “I would do as you do, and claim my birthright for myself and my daughters. And I think,” she continued before Lessa could speak, “the Ladies of Fax’s other Holds would say much the same.” Lessa nodded, and Gemma’s heart skipped a beat as her eyes briefly unfocused.

“Alright,” she said when her eyes had cleared. “Ruask offers to send word to the whers of the other Holds, to stand by their Ladies in return for better treatment.” That, out of everything, stopped Gemma in her tracks. Her cousin was talking to the watchwher. Her cousin apparently was _bargaining_ with the watchwher. It wasn’t something that would ever have crossed Gemma’s mind. But, in thinking of it now, every Hold had at least one watchwher. Shards, as a mining Hold Crom had a veritable pack of them, including a big bronze that prowled the boarders. With their support, just the physical power alone… They could do this. The seven of them, together, could do this.

A spark of flame long thought trodden to ash by Fax began to regrow in her belly, just above the ache of the child lost to his abuse.

“Fetch me parchment and ink, cousin,” she said, forcing herself up against the headboard. “I have sister-wives to write.”


End file.
